I’m not sure if you can tell or not, but I’ve been on a peanut butter kick lately. I’m not sure what the deal is, but when I saw the recipe for these Triple Peanut Butter Cupcakes from Life Love and Sugar, I knew that I HAD to make them. I LOVE REESE’S PIECES! I had to go on a bit of a mission to find the mini Reese’s Pieces, but I’ll tell you it was worth it! I took the rest of these to work and everyone that I worked with loved them! Who wouldn’t?! [Read more…]

Things are really busy over here (my Dessert Tour on Groupon has been doing very well!), but I did want to share some beautiful pictures that I took. And of course they are cupcake related! Cupcake Carnivale, one of my favorite cupcake trucks here in Philly, had a terrific holiday menu. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

One of my favorite shows on TV is Dexter. And now it’s over. *cue sad music* Last night the series finale aired, and I’m not going to spoil anything, I’ll just say that I wasn’t a fan of how it ended. My Sundays have always been filled with Dexter each season and now that’s never going to happen again. There is a Marvel comic book series for Dexter, so maybe I’ll check that out. I hear it’s quite different though.

Which season was your favorite? Personally I loved Season 4 – Trinity Killer. John Lithgow was amazing.

To celebrate the series finale of Dexter, I had to make some cupcakes!

I’m not going to go through the recipe or how I did anything, but if you have any questions whatsoever please ask in the comments and I’ll answer them.

So as you can probably tell, I’m a cupcake kick. Oh wait, this is nothing new. Last weekend’s flavor was the B-52 from Butch Bakery. It was booze-related and it was out of this world. This weekend’s flavor is cookie inspired. It’s a Vanilla Cupcake with Sugar Cookie Dough Buttercream. Now we all know that I’m a huge fan of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Buttercream. That’s no secret. One of my favorite desserts to take to a party is the Chocolate Chip Cookie Bites with Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Buttercream. Wow, that’s a mouth full, isn’t it? So anyway, I was thinking about how much I love the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Buttercream Frosting and I realized I’ve never seen Sugar Cookie Dough Buttercream. So I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to have some fun in the kitchen and create a fun flavor!

For the Cupcake I use the same recipe as I did for the B-52. Why? Because it’s amazing. It’s definitely my new go-to cupcake recipe. If you haven’t tried it yet, please do. It’s so soft and fluffy! I’ll definitely be playing around with this recipe in the future and I’ll definitely be coming up with some fun new flavors. But enough about that, back to this Sugar Cookie Dough Buttercream. Is this for real? Because it’s like a little taste of heaven every time I take a bite. It’s ridiculous.

Plan of Attack

Place a baking rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two muffin pans with liners and set aside.

Place a strainer over a medium-size mixing bowl and sift together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In another medium-size mixing bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Scrap down the sides of the bowl and add the eggs and vanilla, beating until well combined. Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk, beating on low speed, mixing just until all of the dry ingredients are completely incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Fill each prepared muffin cup about 3/4 full. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until the tops are just firm to the touch and a tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 17 minutes. Leave the cupcakes in the pan on a rack to cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack to cool completely before frosting, about 1 hour.

{Make the Sugar Cookie Buttercream}

Beat together the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until creamy. Mix in the confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Beat in the flour and salt. Mix in the milk and vanilla extract until smooth and well blended.

So the next time you’re going to make Cupcakes, make these. They are definitely delicious and are so fun to take to a party or get together. Or if you’re like me, just make them at home and give them away so that you don’t eat them all!

I had the itch to do a little bit of baking and I knew that I wanted to bake cupcakes. I have a ton of cookbooks, some of which I’ve browsed through but have never tried anything from. So I went over and picked out The Butch Bakery Cookbook. I got this cookbook a while ago and I remember there being quite a few delicious flavors that I wanted to try. I was feeling a little boozey this weekend and so I picked the B-52.

The B-52 is a Kahlua-soaked Yellow Cupcake with Bailey’s Buttercream. Oh hell yes.

Butch Bakery was born when David Arrick felt it was time to combine a masculine aesthetic to a traditionally cute product – the cupcake. He thought that cupcakes were either very feminine or still looked like they were made for kids. So he wanted to cater to men and their particular tastes. So there are no flowers, no swirls and no sprinkles. All of the cupcake recipes in the cookbook are for jumbo cupcakes. Who doesn’t love a big cupcake?! Now when I made mine, I ended up making 6 jumbo cupcakes and the rest were “regular” sized. When I put the two sizes next to each other I couldn’t believe how small the regular cupcake looked next to the jumbo one. I think the whole jumbo cupcake might need to be used in an “Eat Dessert First” kind of scenario.

Now we all know how I feel about cake – I’m a boxed cake kind of girl. It’s just what I prefer. But I decided to go all in and try this recipe from start to finish. And I’ve gotta say that this Yellow Cupcake recipe is AMAZING. It was so light and fluffy! I was shocked. I definitely liked this recipe better than the cake recipe I used for the Funfetti Cake I made a few weeks ago. This cake recipe is definitely a keeper. I think the buttermilk really made a difference. And that Bailey’s Buttercream? To die for. This recipe is a must-try.

Plan of Attack

Place a baking rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two 6-cup jumbo-size muffin pans with liners and set aside.

Place a strainer over a medium-size mixing bowl and sift together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In another medium-size mixing bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Scrap down the sides of the bowl and add the eggs and vanilla, beating until well combined. Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk, beating on low speed, mixing just until all of the dry ingredients are completely incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Fill each prepared muffin cup with a rounded 1/3 cup batter, about 3/4 full. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until the tops are just firm to the touch and a tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, about 22 minutes. Leave the cupcakes in the pan on a rack to cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack to cool completely before frosting, about 1 hour.

{Make the Buttercream}

In a large-size mixing bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of he bowl, reduce the speed to medium, and add half of the confectioners’ sugar, Bailey’s, and salt, beating to incorporate. Add the rest of the confectioners’ sugar, beating on medium-high speed for 2 to 3 minutes until very smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

{Cupcake Construction}

Slowly spoon 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of Kahlua over the top of each cupcake. Let them sit for 10 minutes to allow the Kahlua to be absorbed. Then get out that ice cream scoop (2 to 2 1/4 inches in diameter) and top each cupcake with a generous rounded scoop of frosting. Cupcakes can be refrigerated for up to 3 days in an airtight container, or frozen for 1 month.